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So here's 500 words of 7k fic for WIP Wednesday:
( Excerpt )
Why has this fic been stuck for over a month? Well, arguably, it's finished! Just sitting there.
The whole composition process with this one was a big mistake. It's a One Where that got WAY too big for itself. I realised I was actively wrong about how not-idol music worked in modern China, so I went and did a lot of research into the history of it. Then, having done that, I wanted to include it and make the piece palpable. It can also serve, especially with the bibliography, as a How To for other people who want to write this kind of AU. Because it is NOT obvious how to do it with any kind of vague accuracy, this is an area of massive cultural disjunction.
I'm not at all sure about the title. It's random, it could be something else.
An initial reader pointed out that I could move a lot of the discussion of the bands to faux Pitchfork reviews at the top, which is a good idea, but also a massive bitch to execute, so I'm being lazy about it. They also suggested making an accompanying mix, which again, good idea, WORK tho. And describing the physicality of listening to music better (challenging, as China rn is a hardline no-medium Mp3 world where almost all transmission is piracy, but not impossible), and the music itself better (fair).
The trouble I run into here, again and again, is that I'm not a modern AU meet cute writer at all, and my investment in this kind of music is minimal: I learned for the story, I'm not into this outside of it. I keep thinking that fucking with this fic is pouring work into something not great, which as a piece I think some people will care about, but not me, exactly. Like I don't think it's bad, there's just an atmospheric gen piety to it, it's not a character-driven story. I didn't push the misleading and patronising 'make it diaspora' easy button, and I've learned a lot and should put it out there, and why not realise it the best possible way? The not-insurmountable challenges just seem big because I don't like the story. It's well-done, ish, but I don't care about it.
One writing thing is, you're really not going to Love Them All, and outside the frantic self-promo of professional creative spaces and indie spaces infected by their habitudes, you don't have to? You often have, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, a more ambivalent relationship with your work.
( Excerpt )
Why has this fic been stuck for over a month? Well, arguably, it's finished! Just sitting there.
The whole composition process with this one was a big mistake. It's a One Where that got WAY too big for itself. I realised I was actively wrong about how not-idol music worked in modern China, so I went and did a lot of research into the history of it. Then, having done that, I wanted to include it and make the piece palpable. It can also serve, especially with the bibliography, as a How To for other people who want to write this kind of AU. Because it is NOT obvious how to do it with any kind of vague accuracy, this is an area of massive cultural disjunction.
I'm not at all sure about the title. It's random, it could be something else.
An initial reader pointed out that I could move a lot of the discussion of the bands to faux Pitchfork reviews at the top, which is a good idea, but also a massive bitch to execute, so I'm being lazy about it. They also suggested making an accompanying mix, which again, good idea, WORK tho. And describing the physicality of listening to music better (challenging, as China rn is a hardline no-medium Mp3 world where almost all transmission is piracy, but not impossible), and the music itself better (fair).
The trouble I run into here, again and again, is that I'm not a modern AU meet cute writer at all, and my investment in this kind of music is minimal: I learned for the story, I'm not into this outside of it. I keep thinking that fucking with this fic is pouring work into something not great, which as a piece I think some people will care about, but not me, exactly. Like I don't think it's bad, there's just an atmospheric gen piety to it, it's not a character-driven story. I didn't push the misleading and patronising 'make it diaspora' easy button, and I've learned a lot and should put it out there, and why not realise it the best possible way? The not-insurmountable challenges just seem big because I don't like the story. It's well-done, ish, but I don't care about it.
One writing thing is, you're really not going to Love Them All, and outside the frantic self-promo of professional creative spaces and indie spaces infected by their habitudes, you don't have to? You often have, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, a more ambivalent relationship with your work.
